As it stands, at this point in time I cannot deny that my behaviour around food is causing me a lot of emotional pain. Explaining this to anyone who hasn't him/herself experienced it, is difficult and possibly futile.

"I'm in a lot of emotional pain right now"
"Oh no, why is this currently the case?"
"Last night, I...I...ate two bits of chocolate cake"
"Uh-huh."

It's unsurprising and the fault is my own. With food, it's my bad.

Last night I did indeed have two (well, one and a bit) bits of chocolate cake, to celebrate a friend's birthday, and the reaction didn't surprise me. Before I had the cake, whilst I was eating the cake, and certainly after I had consumed said cake, I was suffering.

Beforehand, the suffering was because I knew I was about to have it; during consumption it was because I had started so I had to finish; and afterward it was the guilt and the insanity and the sinking feeling of counting infinite numbers and recounting and recounting just to check I was right the first and second time.

My good friend J eyed me throughout this process with concern. Not the concern that I would suddenly gain 10lbs from one bit of cake; that concern was mine. It was concern because she could see and forsee, just as well as I, the pain I would be in one hour, two hours and 24 hours later.

Her parting words were, "you know you must call me when you need to", though she knew, as I did, that the pain would be too great and that I wouldn't be picking up the phone that night to anyone. Certainly not regarding the chocolate cake. She knew, as did I, exactly what my options were, and there were two of them.

Purge, or cry myself to sleep.

As it happened, I was too extremely tired to do either of these things, and so I simply slept in the horror and the guilt and the worry of what the scale would say this morning.

The scale told me exactly the same as it had the morning before. Why, then, this insane emotional reaction to food?

On the one hand it's about control. Life itself is beyond my control, and this is a belief I have and I can't convince myself otherwise. I don't believe that I'm the most powerful force in the universe, and so what I dictate does not always - not even usually - correlate with what actually happens. When I eat, however, I know that I'm in control. I count, and I know how much I've eaten and how much I can permit myself to eat later on and so forth.

On the other hand, it's about me. I surrendered to addiction a long time ago now, and parts of it will always be with me. The thinking, not the drinking, is the ongoing issue. And in a way it always will be. But that's okay; I'd rather have had my sober day today than that of any 'normal' person out there. Because it was mine.

Thank you very much :)